


don't forget to breathe

by warmh0ney



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Angst, Blood, Coping, Damaged Draco Malfoy, Dark, Death Eaters, Drama, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Recovery, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Self-Harm, Slytherin, Smut, Tom Riddle as a dad, Toxic Relationship, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:42:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29307480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmh0ney/pseuds/warmh0ney
Summary: Lord Voldemort is dead, and Katharine Riddle learns that maybe she's not as unemotional as she thought she was. Grief is strange. A curse, a war, a choice… Grief arrives, blink, and there it is, it sits on you. It's real. And to anybody watching, you look pitiful. Like you've suddenly lost a part of yourself. There's no cure for it unless you come across somebody who understands how you feel. So when grief arrived, she blinked, and there he was, Draco Malfoy.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/OC
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This book is intended for adults and contains violence (physical and verbal), mental illness, drug/substance abuse, and rape/non-consensual sex. Reader discretion is advised.
> 
> The story is set post-war. All characters in this story belong to JK Rowling, except Katharine Riddle and her mother (not Bellatrix).

Katharine Riddle laid on the chaise lounge, staring blankly at the Rorschach blot. The psychoanalyst, or whatever the fuck they called themselves, had asked her to describe what she saw. She tried to make it look like a butterfly, with its great wings spread out, but it didn’t. It looked more like the maggots she’d found in the body she’d murdered and left to rot. Those fat, glistening larvae squirming over each other, eating festering flesh, frantically tunneling away from the light.

But even that wasn’t the real horror. The horror was this: in the end, the photo was simply nothing more than an image of empty meaningless darkness.

The shrink told her that she had a good news and a bad news. “Firstly, you’ve passed the test. You’re allowed to go back to Hogwarts. Congratulations.”

“Okay,” Katharine said slowly, warily. “And what’s the good news?”

When Draco Malfoy leaned his head back on the dungeon's wall, he wasn't thinking of his father who was imprisoned in Azkaban. Or of his mother who was on house arrest. Or of the burning scar on the inner part of his forearm. And while this blonde Slytherin third-year kneeling before him was pleasant enough to look at, he wasn't distracted by her unbelievably long eyelashes. Or the curve of her lips around his cock.

Of all things, he was thinking about that one arithmancy problem they had discussed earlier in class. For some reason, the girl's moaning had a pattern, which had made him think about number charts.

He sighed. Tapped her cheeks once. Twice. "That's quite enough."

"Oh," she murmured, frowning in confusion. "But you haven't come."

"Exactly."


	2. Chapter 2

**What was your first thought when you woke up this morning?**   
  


Gods.

I thought of the gods. The old and the new. The ones who are kind and merciful, and the ones that only answer after dark. For those who believe in them, most of the big questions are already answered. What is my purpose? What comes after death? How did everything begin?

But for us, who are intelligent enough to reject this ridiculous half-arsed god formula, the big answers don't remain carved in stone. We move on, adjust to new conditions, discoveries. We are bendable, reasonably springy. Love nor faith need not be commanded. Sin is not frowned upon. We do not pretend to be righteous.

I am here to exist, to take pleasure, to drink whiskey, to laugh at the odds and live my life so fucking well that Death shall tremble to take me.

Today— today I have decided to become my own god.  
  
  


Kat.  
  


\---  
  


It was Monday morning, the sun hidden behind a plethora of nimbus clouds. Katharine Riddle sat unmoving in the Great Hall, the wood beneath her legs pushing into the thin material of her skirt.

The moment was quiet, perturbed. Katharine felt anxious, but more than that, she felt annoyed. She can feel the stares, the glares, the sneers. None of them cared who she killed, none of them cared who she _didn't_ kill; the fact that she is who she is was enough reason for them to despise her.

Polished silver platters appeared before her and she held her breath, expecting to see her father staring back. Because it was simply impossible that he was dead. Killed, no less by Harry Potter, who seemed to be stuck in that petulant period of transition between childhood and adulthood. The greatest wizard in the world, _killed_ by a fucking temperamental child. It was laughable. It was impossible. It wasn't real.

But it was, because all she saw was her own reflection. Noticed what everyone else noticed: her eyes. One iris is green, the other ruby red. A reminder of who Katharine was, is, will be.

Halved. Insufficient. Partial. Almost something, but not quite. Smart, but not as clever as her father. Pretty, but not as beautiful as her mother. A murderer, but for all the wrong reasons.

She twisted her back slowly, pulling its muscles, still feeling hands dragging down her scarred skin— touching, groping, drawing blood but also fear, fear of what they would do next.

"You've got a lot of nerve coming back here." A voice interrupted her thoughts.

She sighed. This part, she hated the most.

Katharine would rather them loathe her from a distance. Whisper curses behind her back. But some people— _some people_ just won't leave her alone. So she closed her unearthly eyes and counted the seconds, kept her head down as she heard the footsteps underneath her heartbeat, and held her breath again when she felt him halt behind her.

He will stand there, waiting for her to look up. To fight back. To give him more reasons to hate her. And she knew he won't leave until he gets that, so she savored the quiet for several more seconds before she forced herself to open her eyes, look up, and pretend she doesn't notice the hatred on his face.

Not one word was spoken, but their eyes conversed in a language made by a hero and a villain of a protracted, never-ending story. Katharine will always be Harry Potter's enemy, that much she was certain. His face was so taut, so tense, so angry. And she wondered, for a moment, what would happen if she killed him right now, even as she knew that thought was insane.

She felt mad enough to do it, though.

Instead, she stared directly at a point above his head. Found a stain on the wall. Wondered if it was from spilled wine or from spilled blood.

A small sardonic smirk pulled at her lips. Three months ago, hundreds of bodies littered the very floor they were standing on. Now it was a place where they have their _breakfast_.

"Remember Fred Weasley," said Harry. Katharine's fingers twitched. "Colin Creevey. Lavender Brown. Albus Dumbledore—"

" _Harry Potter_. And Ron Weasley. And Hermione Granger," she continued for him. Smiled a tight smile. "If you don't shut your mouth."

"Your father is dead. I killed him. You have no power here anymore."

"And you never let me forget," she mumbled under her breath, momentarily distracted by a loose thread on her robe. Katharine cleared her throat, and stared straight into his eyes when she spoke again. "Perhaps my dear father is having a three-way with your mum and dad in heaven right now."

Harry Potter's face went feral. Reached for his wand, but doesn't do anything about it. Katharine laughed, almost melancholically, shook her head. He can't kill her. If he could, he would've done it ages ago. So now, no one can. Because according to the Ministry, Katharine Riddle was _one of them_. Good. A victim. A hero. A child who had no choice.

Loads of bollocks, if you asked her.

Not for the first time someone had misjudged her. Even in his afterlife, her father still overshadowed her. _Defined_ her. Couldn't she be evil on her own? Couldn't they hate her for _her_? For her personality?

After all, she _does_ make an effort to make it as foul as possible.  
  
  
  
  
  


**What was your first thought when you woke up this morning?**   
  


How in the hell could a guy enjoy being awakened at 7 in the morning, by an obnoxious bell, leap out of bed, shower, look decent, eat breakfast in a fucking graveyard, shit, piss, walk to a place where everyone wishes you were dead, spend all day learning nothing but bullshit, and be asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

That was my first thought this morning. Next question.

I said, next question.

Oh, no.

No no no. Is that it? Did I do it right? Is this thing broken? That did absolutely _nothing_ to help me feel better. What is the point of this then, you fuckers?

Fuck this. God-damned nosy people. Fuck you. Fuck my life. Fuck Harry Potter. Fuck you.

There, now I feel better.  
  


Love,

Draco Malfoy  
  


\---

Draco Malfoy woke up one day and found that he was drawn to all the wrong things: he liked alcohol, drugs, fucking around, serving mass murderers, murdering headmasters, cheating, lying, stealing. He didn't have a god, bowed to no one, no politics, no ideas, no ideals. He had settled himself into nothingness, comfortably so. A kind of non-being, barely there, barely breathing, barely thinking, barely existing. And he had accepted it. His miserable ever after. He certainly didn't make for an interesting person anymore. Didn't want to. He found it too hard. Too exhausting.

What he truly wanted was to live far away from this war-torn hellscape. Perhaps find a small, cozy, warm space to live in, and to be left the hell alone.

On the other hand, when he got drunk he yelled, broke things, went crazy, fucked everyone on sight, and got all out of hand.

One kind of behavior didn't fit the other. 

He didn't care. 

Draco wanted to feel nothing, to feel empty, but as the world darkened, he could feel the rain fluctuating between shower and torrential. It messed with his mind. One moment you think it's the end, and right when you think the worst is over, the wind was up and it was pouring again.

"Perhaps my dear father is having a three-way with your mum and dad in heaven right now."

An unbidden snort rushed out from his nose and he looked up from his firewhiskey-spiked orange juice to see Katharine Riddle, looking at Potter with such dead eyes he's surprised no one was mourning them.

Meanwhile, Theodore Nott was snogging Pansy Parkinson in the middle of their fucking breakfast, and he gestured for Draco to join them, but he pretended to be blind. Ignored the pull, the tempting draw of gravity, the open arms waiting at the end of the fall.

The rise wasn't worth the fall. It never is.

His mind pulled him away from the scene and back again to his glass. He drank, and at first all he tasted was citrus, the faint burn of whiskey, but then the world began to blur at the edges. He almost could have pretended to be someone else, but the sound of the incessant rain kept dragging him back to this shitshow he kept trying to escape from.

 _It will end_ , he reminded himself. _It will end._

He muttered some excuse to no one in particular about going out and finding air, and he made it halfway down the hall before someone whispered his name. _Malfoy_ , they whispered, like it was a secret. Like they shouldn't be calling him. Like he wasn't supposed to be here.

Draco turned around and found a Hufflepuff staring back at him.

"Fuck off," he said, the words automatic, like _hello,_ or _how can I help you,_ or _good morning._ And he was still trying to think of more kind things to say when she stood on her toes and brought her lips to his, quick, barely a kiss.

He blinked at her, at this Hufflepuff that he'd only met ten seconds ago, and said, "I'm a Death Eater." 

"I know," she whispered again, a playful smile spreading across her face.

And then they were in a closet, a broom wedged beneath the handle, the sound of rain blotted out by the steady rhythm of skin slapping against skin as Draco thrust himself in and out of the nameless girl.

He closed his eyes, let the world go black, and for a while, he finally disappears.


End file.
